Posted
by
timothyon Sunday June 09, 2013 @08:26AM
from the hey-dad-what's-up-with-that? dept.

anagama writes "NSA officials have repeatedly denied under oath to Congress that even producing an estimate of the number of Americans caught up in its surveillance is impossible. Leaked screenshots of an NSA application that does exactly that, prove that the NSA flat out lied (surprise). Glenn Greenwald continues his relentless attacks with another bombshell this time exposing Boundless Informant. Interestingly, the NSA spies more on America than China according to the heat map. Representative Wyden had sought amendments to FISA reauthorization bill that would have required the NSA to provide information like this (hence the NSA's lies), but Obama and Feinstein demanded a pure reauthorization of FISA, which they got at the end of 2012." And if you don't mind that you might have your name on yet another special list, you might enjoy this Twitter-based take on the ongoing news.

In English, a way to express a verb emphatically is through adding the helper verb "to do" - as in "Yes, I did say that." Emphatic moods are usually used in English if the verb is being used interrogatively (i.e. "Did you say that?") or negatively (e.g., "I did not say that" - as opposed to "I not say that.")

Still, it's proper to say "I never said that" as opposed to "I never did not say that" or "I did not say that never." If you want to sound full-on uneduamacated you would say "I never not say that." Emphatically proper: "Never did I say that."

For +1 pomposity you can expand "never" to its original form "not ever": "Not ever did I say that." Though "I not ever say that" sounds weird to me, but "I not ever did say that" sounds OK. "I not never say that" is basically admitting you never passed 8th grade. "I did not never say that never" is actually a scientifically documented way of reducing the IQ of those surrounding you by 10 points just based on the utterance of those words. Add "ever" after "never" to double the impact.

Spanish considers double negatives valid though, as an example of a language where the construct is supported.

In this case, as with most cases, there was no right president to elect.

Most of this sort of thing is no longer under the President's or even Congress' control as you'll find out if enough of Congress actually get together and back a bill to end this. Martial law will certainly be the result. Like most large events in history, they are not recognized in their time but someone will look back at the decade just past and say, "The experiment called American Democracy died here."

Correct. Obama is merely continuing and expanding on Bush's policies (while simultaneously blaming him for the resulting effects). McCain would have done the same, perhaps more, perhaps less. This is a farce unlike any seen on this planet for more than a thousand years.

Spoiler alert: It ends badly.

The only way to end without losing everything to hyperinflation and confiscation by the police state is to vote third party. ANY third party. Honestly, even the Socialist Party would be better than this. At least they wouldn't cloak their socialism or national socialism in the guise of capitalism.

But the odds of that happening in time, against the hegemony, are asymptotic to zero. Since the last time it happened the two big parties have spent more than a century and a half ensconcing their rule in law.

* or more other more-difficult-to-understand-and-implement Condorcet method

Bull shit!! Bull shit!!! Bull shiiiiit! Bush hired enough lawyers to make sure he walked just on the line between legal an illegal. He chose to stay within the law and to demand that laws change just so that the head of state of this nation would still be bound by the laws of this nation. Obama does not even pretend to be restricted by such frivolities as the law. The obsequious news media is what does it. No benevolent dictatorship stays benevolent for long.

the only way to make unconstitutional search and seizure legal is to change the constitution. passing a law in congress doesn't work. I don't recall any constitution changes happening in the last 20 years.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

There are a few critical details there. First the search has to be reasonable, but there isn't a clear definition there, although any reasonable person would clearly think that this is not a reasonable search. Next warrants may only issue upon probably cause supported by Oath or affirmation. That's a very important restriction. Warrants can't legally be fishing expiditions, there has to be probable cause sworn to by either a witness or investigating officer. There's absolutely no way they had probably cause for all of those people.

No, they didn't. They had a piece of paper which said it was a warrant. But a warrant is a recognition of an exceptional condition by a judge. As such, it cannot be issued for 120,000,000 people. It wasn't a warrant. It wan an attempt to change the law and call it a warrant.

It doesn't matter that it's stored on 3rd party's equipment. You don't "own" your conversation either. But it's established case law that you need a warrant for the subscriber rather than for the provider of the service to gain access to the information stored on 3rd party's equipment. As to the "only want warrant" comment, no one has claimed that they got multiple warrants. But a warrant is still an exception to the regular restrictions on government activities toward end-users. A single warrant can co

Bull shit!! Bull shit!!! Bull shiiiiit! Bush hired enough lawyers to make sure he walked just on the line between legal an illegal. He chose to stay within the law and to demand that laws change just so that the head of state of this nation would still be bound by the laws of this nation. Obama does not even pretend to be restricted by such frivolities as the law. The obsequious news media is what does it. No benevolent dictatorship stays benevolent for long.

Wait, that doesn't sound right.

Lawyers ok'd the WMD lies and resulting war? Can they be held accountable for that?

What about the outting of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame?

And weren't John Yoo's (sp?) so-called Torture Memos highly questionable from the first day they were publicized?

Wasn't the spying on Americans begun under Bush? If lawyers approved it then, then why isn't it okay now?

And that record number of... what are they called when signing a bill into law? Waivers? Bush was famous for enacting la

If by "this", you mean the wiretapping by the NSA, there is evidence. They need a warrant to wiretap. A warrant is recognition by the judiciary of an exceptional condition. Which is why a warrant cannot be issued for 120,000,000 people. This is, at the very least, abuse of discretion by a judge. But they got a "NO" to this warrant from 2 judges and only a 3rd one said yes. So, in this case, they knew the warrant could not be issued without breaking the law. Issuing a warrant for 120,000,000 people is

ANY third party. Honestly, even the Socialist Party would be better than this.

Why vote for a party that isn't on ballots in enough states to win (except as a "none of the above" vote) when the Libertarian Party, Green Party, and Constitution party are on enough ballots? I've said before, if you think the government isn't working and you're Republican, vote Libertarian or Constitution. If you're a Democrat, vote Green. If you're happy with the way government is, keep voting Republicrat.

Quantitative Easing: all the government bond which don't sell on the free market are bought by the Federal Reserve. This isn't a side effect of the QE. It is QE. As long as the Federal Reserve keeps buying excess debt, the interest rate is artificially low. This "debt" is then repaid with issuing more bonds and selling them to the FED through QE. This wouldn't be money printing if there was an interest on the debt. It would be a pyramid scheme, but not printing. BUT! Any interest paid to the FED is deposited in the Treasury as "profit". So FED buys Treasury bonds, Treasury repaid this debt with interest. Treasury gets back the interest from the FED as "FED's profit from interest on lending". End effect? Treasury borrows from the FED at 0%. What is called when you borrow money at 0%, never pay the principal and only pay the interest? It's not money printing? What is it, then?

It's worse then that. The bonds the fed just bought are 'hard assets'. Through the magic of fraction reserve banking the Fed loans out about 10x that amount, getting about inflation from their customers.

That's the point. They are both evil. Bush should have been impeached and hung from the neck until dead for his crimes against humanity and the American people. The same goes for Obama.

Of course, that won't happen. At best, Obama gets impeached and Biden takes his place and does the same thing. At bester, Biden is also impeached, but even then Boner gets in and, again, does the same thing. It's not until we hit the 13th in line for succession that we reach someone who isn't an (R) or a (D), and eve

People like to say that, but it helps when the media isn't in the tank with the government. Much like the media today is, and spinning for all it's worth trying to cover up *insert issue* though the last few things like the AP wire tap, and attacks against Fox News by the Obama admin seem to have gotten the press against them. This is followed by the realization of a lot of people that the government was/is/continues to target conservative groups. AKA "Where were the tea party groups in 2010? That's simple, being silenced."

Well not to forget that the low information voters are simply a curse on everyone. But even they've started to realize exactly what Obama is, worse than Bush. And for many people, that's rather surprising, unless of course you were paying attention and did digging on your own. A lot of people have realized that the current administration is actually worse than Nixon. What are we upto now? 8 or 9 scandals? I'm sure there's at least 3 to 4 more out there, especially now that the Obama admin is targeting whistleblowers.

All voters are low information. There simply is not the time to be a high or even medium information voter.

Btw.... terms like "low information voter" are just more pat phrases invented by the machine to distract and isolate the citizens.Easier to control the masses by creating buzzwords that blame everyone but oneself.

Funny how it is a conservative media buzzword at the moment. My dad who listens to Rush, Hannity, et all non-stop has started using "Low information Voter" to describe basically everyone he doesn't seem to agree with. Basically it is an odd Ad hominem attack against a generalized group of people one takes issue with.

Reminds me of when the Liberals where slinging around phrases like republitards or conservatives slinging around phrases like libtards. Perhaps more crude and organic, but never-the-less pat phrases which are generalizations. The phrase seems pretty pat when it is a recent and popularized conservative media buzzword to run-down a entire groups of people, but then again your experience may vary. One group calling the other group "Low Information" is pretty much a nice tidy label for your political opponents which entirely ignores the fact that almost everyone is "low information".

"Odd that I can pay attention to both Canadian and American politics at a level where I know what's going on. High consumption of politics isn't required, at most 35mins a day, on the most highly trafficked political sites will get you up to a "medium" level voter."

Do you know whats going on? That is a fairly large assumption. I take the opposite view myself. I don't know most of what is going on. Getting truth out of propaganda is a tricky business. If you think 35 min a day gets you to a medium level of knowledge of politics... then you definitely have a low bar of expectation of actual understanding. Even more so given that you are relying on this knowledge from a few "highly trafficked political" sites. It often takes me many hours of research to look at what folks are saying and verify if it has any merit at all. Even after checking things out I often am not certain what the real story is. But then again, l tend to be skeptical about what is being fed to me.

Being fed your political regurgitations from some websites informs you up to a certain level, but real understanding is much harder to come by.

"They're the people who don't really have an interest in politics at all, but are easily swayed by blasts of information for either or both parties. Which fit their viewpoint."

I think you could say the same thing about partisans. Are partisan voter generally more informed in your estimation? Seems to me that most people don't have much of the actual information. I get pat stuff from both sides of the political aisle all the time which makes no sense what-so-ever. In the end it turns out to be just propaganda and not real information.

In my view, partisans usually don't have much interest in politics other than getting all bunched up about this or that thing every so often. Partisans are the ones who have drunk the coolaid and don't seem to have much ability to think outside of their info food chains. If they get a piece of information... they spend a huge amount of effort to make it fit their world view.

Low information voter is simply not being used to describe swing voters as seems to be your assertion.Here is what Rush Limbaugh said for your edification."Low-information voters are clearly people that don't have all the information available to make a voting choice. That's all they are. And they're all over the place. And most of them do vote Democrat. Most of them did vote for Obama. It's not a comment on their intelligence. It's not that they're stupid or don't understand the issues. They just haven't had it all explained to them."

So... if these voters had things "explained" to them somehow make them better voters? Probably not. It depends on who is explaining and whether the information they are using is actual and not propaganda. I prefer to not digest pre-digested information from a few top political sites which are almost entirely partisan propaganda machines. The information is out there, but it usually is not found on highly trafficked political sites.

Today is the day I start slowly cutting my ties with Facebook, learning the ways of secure chat, email etc... Unfortunately Slashdot is most probably part of the problem. Perhaps current governments honestly do think they're serving the greater good, but that's an an awful big carrot sitting there waiting for the next Napoleon, Hitler, lesser psychopath etc... I can make it less enticing in my small and probably largely ineffectual way, but we can only do what we can. I actually already have a Diaspora* account, though Friendica looks interesting. It's way past time I learned about these technologies anyway.

I've distrusted Google since for many years but there's no way to protect yourself on the Internets except to be a law-abiding person.

There's been a trend on/. where security-related or anti-governmental stories get pushed off the/. front page quickly; hidden by a sudden influx of other stories in an effort to bury them. Presumably, by US governmental/. posters to protect the US government and it's interests.

but there's no way to protect yourself on the Internets except to be a law-abiding person.

It's difficult to be a law abiding citizen because there are so many laws that it's difficult to not run afoul of at least a few. And really, you also have to hope that the government is made up of perfect angels who would never abuse their powers or make mistakes; otherwise, you may get hurt despite being a law-abiding person...

no way to protect yourself on the Internets except to be a law-abiding person.

Ain't gonna help you... Phone- and video-sex are still legal, for just one example. But, if you've ever any of that, a dedicated law-enforcer may use that as a leverage to blackmail you later in life. Or pass the embarrassing records to some non-government organization. IRS have already done that [propublica.org].All for the Greater Good, of course.

It does not even have to be ordered from the top [spectator.org]: recall the Joe the Plumber incident. The man ask

Hate Obama as much as you like (I'll join you) but calling him a Communist means nobody should take your ranting seriously. Just for laughs, care to say why calling him a Communist makes any sense, even as ranting hyperbole?

And the bureaucracy under fire just battens down the hatches, rides out the storm and continued business as usual. The American public is to easily distracted (Look! Its Kim Kardashian!) to keep the pressure up on these people long and hard enough th affect change.

And some agencies are beyond the law. Forget about which party is in charge, screw with the wrong group and you get a limo ride through Dealey Plaza.

Except the Democratic Party and the news have been completely incestuous with one another. News is a form of entertainment now. And in entertainment, the Republicans are mean the Communists are "the good guys."

McCarthy was validated after Soviet Union fell apart, you fool. Released Soviet archives showed that his accusations were accurate..

The accuracy (or otherwise) of the accusations of people being communist sympathizers is irrelevent. In a free country, people should be free to hold opinions, irrespective of the nature of those opinions without fear of being persecuted for them.

Every time news 1/100th as damaging as these came out under Bush, there was an outcry.

Mostly among non-republicans. Now that a democrat is in power, fewer democrats are speaking out when said democrat abusing his power. It's what happens every single time.

And when Bush was in office fewer Republicans were speaking out against him. I have no use for the hypocrisy on either side, but don't pretend it doesn't happen on both sides. Many Republicans use Benghazi in every other sentence these days, but from those same people I heard lots of rationalizations about why we invaded a country that not only didn't have WMD's, but for which there were very good reasons to believe ahead of time didn't have WMD's.

Not on his part. The world at large did not believe that Iraq had WMDs, which is why the UN did not authorize the use of force.

Even we didn't believe it. Recall that Cheney advocated a "1% doctorine." If there was even 1% chance that Iraq had WMDs, he thought we should invade. In other words, we were 99% certain that there were no weapons, but, "What the hell? Let's invade."

Fuck you and fuck anyone who defends those murderous scumbags. People died for their aggression.

Aside being complete fiction, the monitor was directly listening in, empathized with the folks he was spying on, was disillusioned with his cause and leadership and basically burned out with the whole job - IIRC.

With the NSA, they have mostly automated systems that are listening in on everyone in a mechanical way that doesn't allow for empathy and identification with the vict...subject, you have monitors that believe that they are "protecting" the US from

It's too late to stop this or even do anything about it. The only actions that can be taken would be to physically destroy the facilities that handle this data gathering and store the harvest.

It's clear that the US government doesn't care about our laws of Constitution. They lie to the people, to Congress, to judges and even to each other. This crap started late in the GWB's second term and our current administration of "change" has done nothing about it except to expand its reach.

Call your Congressperson and demand that he do something... No wait, not the telephone; that's bugged. Send him an emai... dammit!. OK, send him a letter. They still (we think) won't open that without a warrant.

I found this lying around on the internet. It looks like at least some of the people at the NSA know damned well that what they're doing is wrong, but don't seem to care (or didn't understand that what is described in 1984 is bad): I'm making the assumption that this [cypherspace.org] is true.

Yes the link is true, that is I reverse engineered lotus notes back a decade or so ago, and I did see the X509 Organization=MiniTruth and the entity name: DN=Big Brother. And very spooky that was for a surreal moment (fiction blurred to reality orwell's 1984) looking at hex dumps on a green monitor at 1am or something after quite multiple hour reverse engineering stint to find that point!
However speculation was those strings were set by a disgruntled IBM / Lotus Notes programmer as I dont think the key i

I've found the video, watch James Clapper act. Senator Ron Wyden, *ALREADY KNOWS* they are spying on everyone in America, he's a Senator whose been briefed. So Wyden knows Clapper is fucking lying to him/America.

...and in the meantime become more security conscious and learn the ways of more secure technologies, and perhaps more secure and fedorated social networking platforms such as Diaspora*, Friendica etc... Duckduckgo for search (although who REALLY knows if these guys are honest). Any more tips for the SaaS (Spying as a Service) refugee?

It's clear that the US government doesn't care about our laws of Constitution.

Well, let me quote Obama on PRISM:

"I think it's important to recognize you can't have 100 percent security and also 100 percent privacy, and also zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society."

Sounds good, doesn't it? Except for that "we're going to have to make some choices as a society" bit. Because we already did. It is called "Constitution", and it is not the job of the government to put different choices into place without asking back first. We have made some choices as a society. The government may ask nicely whether we want to change some of those choices. But they are in no position to just ignore them.

They lie to the people, to Congress, to judges and even to each other. This crap started late in the GWB's second term

Ah, yes, another youth who hasn't read or lived through much history. Look up the McCarthy witch hunts, J.Edgar Hoover's spying on American anti-war protesters and civil rights activists, and the Kent State massacre just for a start. It happened at least as far back as Coolidge with prohibition; here [virginia.edu] is a book about the roaring twenties that was required reading in a general studies history class I took at SIU back in the seventies. It's well written and a good read.

I'd guess it's gone on even longer, and nobody my age is surprised by any of this. Disgusted, but not surprised.

It's too late to stop this or even do anything about it. The only actions that can be taken would be to physically destroy the facilities that handle this data gathering and store the harvest.

I assume you must be either a failing agent provocateur [wikipedia.org] or a nitwit. Congress still controls the purse strings for the government, including NSA, and the other agencies that have become embroiled in scandals, such as the IRS. Congress can cut their funding if it comes down to it. Attempts at violence would only inflame things at this point, not help. I also have little doubt that those facilities might have at least a little protection, don't you think?

It seems clear that the whole story isn't coming out. Selective leaking that doesn't include the context, full details, FISA court findings, results of the program, and other information, can inflame rather than inform, and could constitute just as much of a lie as people assume of the government leadership. The only ones likely to get something even remotely close to resembling the whole story are the people in Congress. It could be that this is highly valuable, and complies with the constitutional protections overseen by the FISA court. Or maybe something bad is going on, but Congress needs to look at it and perform oversight. It was the Church committee that reigned in the CIA - some would say neutered to the point that it helped set the stage for 9/11. And it was 9/11 that helped drive this, isn't it? Oversight must be done by Congress, carefully, and deliberately. You should probably make sure that you cripple or destroy America's enemies before thoughtlessly crippling NSA and destroying its datacenters.

Benjamin Franklin said Americans had a republic, if they could keep it.

This is the time work on keeping it by:- Letters to congress put in the post box- Voting for a change of representation at the ballot box- Some time on the soap box.- Some government employees sitting in front of the jury box.

Suggested topics:- IRS suppression of legitimate peaceful political opposition groups- IRS suppression of legitimate peaceful religious groups- Possible involvement by the FBI, EPA, and OSHA in the above- IRS seizure of 60,000,000 medical records they are not entitled to in breach of the 4th Amendment- Unprecedented Justice Department investigation of reporters- Stonewalling by government officials before congress and refusing to turn over documents- Attempts by the administration to disarm the public by outlawing weapons seldom used to commit crimes - semiautomatic rifles- The very wide dragnet by the NSA when considered with the above

Slashdot has had stories on much of that recently. Search for IRS, or AP, etc.

It is legitimate for the NSA to monitor people in direct communication with terrorist groups, and other terrorists*. And make no mistake, there are terrorists out there [slashdot.org]. But this, considered in light of the above is cause for concern. Congress better be doing some good oversight.

* Genuine terrorists trying to bomb, shoot, poison or otherwise kill innocent people, typically in large numbers, with a very broad understanding of innocent.

Let happen?! Inaction??? The Hell, my friend, we all but demanded this happen. We have a bad habit of believing liars in America, so long as they have the right party letter after their name. It's long past time we wake up and realize they all, Dems and Reps alike, lie to us for their own profit. We've opened Pandora's Box and it's highly likely it cannot be closed.

Contact your Representatives and DEMAND that the PATRIOT act be repealed. It is wrong that it ever became permanent and was supposed to only be a temp measure.. IT is being abused and is an abomination to everything that america holds dear.

Write a LETTER and an email you your representatives now and demand they repeal it. Without the PATRIOT act, Everything crumbles at their feet.

What is it with the apparent belief that the US Constitution is only supposed to guarantee rights for US citizens?

This seems to be an implicit assumption in the public reaction to the NSA spying scandals. The Constitution makes no such distinction; it is intended to limit the power of the government, period, regardless of who is affected. If this were not the case, the US government could do anything it wanted to foreigners: search without a warrant, detain them indefinitely without charges, torture them, even murder them.

Oh, right...

Sorry for the cynicism, but the point should be obvious: This is clearly not the intent of the Constitution. The US government is out of control, but too many Americans excuse this by saying "well, it's mostly them foreigners, so it's ok". It is not ok. Anyway, it is now beyond obvious that the US government routinely violates the rights of everyone including US citizens.

The point is that most Americans don't care if it's not them. But now we see that it IS them. That's the point of this leak... Even YOU are being targeted by your government now... what are YOU going to do? And voting wont help... Both parties were in on this. What are you going to do when your entire government is a corrupt mess that has more of your population in prison than any other government in history, manipulates your elections in such an efficient way most people feel like they're actually making a

"She [NSA spokesperson] added: "The continued publication of these allegations about highly classified issues, and other information taken out of context, makes it impossible to conduct a reasonable discussion on the merits of these programs.""

Oh. Oh really? Well, that's really a shame, given that you should have conducted a reasonable discussion on the merits of these programs BEFORE implementing them!

People might even be okay with these programs depending upon the nature of what's being done and the rationale for it. People already accept things such as the need for police to conduct wiretaps if the case is good enough for a judge to issue a warrant. But we're in a democracy. If you don't even talk to the people about this kind of widespread sweep, and get feedback on whether it is acceptable to them or not, then of course they're fricking angry when they find out how far you've gone without consulting them. This thing has long been suspected by plenty of people. It's not a big surprise. But why the hell are you surprised that it's a freaking mess to try to sort things out after the fact becomes official? I mean, I know the "act first, ask for forgiveness later" approach might be deeply engrained in the intelligence community, but you're talking about wholesale monitoring of people's communications. Of course there is going to to a be a lot of misinformation and confusion when you don't provide any information yourself about it. Deal with it. Properly. Please. Correct the inaccuracies.

This is one of those situations where if you don't get out in front of the thing with some factual and specific information promptly, then nobody is going to believe you even if you do tell the truth.

How can public relations people working for an intelligence agency be so clued out about how to handle this? Oh, there's misinformation? No kidding? And you think not saying how the program actually works will cure the problem? Bizarre.

A lot of pessimistic posters are saying how nothing will change and people don't care. I wonder if this is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you're one of these people, have you done ALL of the following?

Donate to the ACLU and EFF

Stop supporting BOTH Democrats and Republicans and start supporting a third party

..way back in the 90's for a while it was "a thing" to attach fake "false positive" sentences and words to online posts and e-mails to "gum up" the data collected by echelon. How come American's haven't immediately started that up again? I haven't even heard the idea mentioned. You'd think Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would think of and be on board with something like that.

Can anyone explain to me why all this shits coming out now? All at once? From several different agencies? This can't be a coincidence. Is the NSA stuff getting leaked on purpose to get the media off the IRS story? I really don't get this. I could see all the NSA stuff coming from one source. But the other stories? Clearly we're being manipulated, but by whom and for what purpose?

It's call dumping. An administration "leaks" all the stories they don't want to come out during an election cycle. By the time the next election comes around, nobody cares and it all seems like old news.

Urm, we're supposed to live in a democracy, right?If there are real threats, (and seems to be plenty of them), that this technology can efficiently and effectively combat, then explain it to the people who vote and also pay for the damn thing.Don't give me BS about how that will somehow "compromise" the security of the system; specific facts (like the names of agents) compromise security, not generic information about what information you are gathering, on whom.

These people lie to avoid oversight, is all. That way leads to tyranny.If they cannot explain why this is in our interests, then it's not.

Now that the western governments are getting at a point where resisting them can be perceived by the public as a freedom fight instead of terrorism.
If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

NSA is orchestrating a limited hangout [wikipedia.org] to try and focus and tie off the entire surveillance issue into a neat little package of FISA and a 'manageable' number of transactional transgressions. Not surprisingly the New York Times gobbled up the bait [nytimes.com], fronting the idea that this whole rasmatazz is about a few digital drop boxes where companies dropped users' data upon

Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how difficult it was to come up with "scathing" questions that could be lied to with the technical truth? I seriously doubt any but the most naive in Congress are at all surprised by these events, but obviously they have to *act* surprised on camera or there might be public outcry that could damage their own boat. Meanwhile they also need to give the folks being questioned plenty of wiggle room as a professional courtesy, after all any one of them could be the next victims of some inquest or other. Plus you know, NSA. They almost certainly have career-ending dirt on every major politician in the country, you gotta be sure that in the back-room after-meeting you can make a good claim that you did everything you could to protect them or your own face may feature in the next front-page scandal.

Not only that, but the chart only shows pieces of data, about 2 billion for the U.S in a 30-day period. It does not show how many people at all. The NSA officals' statements were probably literally true: they can't know how many people are connected to the vast mountain of data they collect.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Citizenship is not mentioned and the clear intent of the Amendment is to limit the kinds of things the government can do. In a reasonably broad interpretation, it means that whoever the person is, regardless of citizenship, a warrant is required. In a reasonably narrow interpretation, "the people" means everybody who lives or does business in the United States. Remember that at the time this was written, the notion of citizenship was not sharply defined. There were many people living under the jurisdiction of US law whose status wasn't entirely clear. What people cared about was what the government had power to do in the States.

As a native born citizen, I get a little tired of the notion so popular these days that only citizens are entitled to Constitutional protections. Unless you're here with a diplomatic status, everyone in the US is subject to its laws while here. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. Guess what? Our most important laws are called the Constitution, which includes the Bill of Rights.

And when they ask better questions, I suppose you're going to say that it depends on what the definition of 'is' is.

That's exactly his point. In law, as in any other profession, different words mean different things. To a computer professional, "it" means "information technology." To a judge, LEO means "law enforcement officer" while to someone from NASA it means "low Earth orbit."

Lawyers know the legal meanings of words, which may not be exactly the same as what your Websters says.

Now that you've set your conclusions in stone & you've denounced the NSA for lying, would you mind giving us the proof that what your basing all this on is actually from the NSA & not some disinformation? What? You don't actually have any proof & all your conclusions are based on hot air? I'm astonished, astonished, I tell you...

Democratic senator Ron Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
NSA Director James Clapper: "No sir, not Intentionally."

How do you reconcile Mr. Clapper's response with the Verizon court order?

"It is hereby ordered that [Verizon Business Network Services'] Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls,"

They don't _have_ to read / listen to your communication -- it's kind of like a spam filter, the PRISM software assigns a score to the particular piece of information based on the number of keywords that occur in it (a 'blind' answer presumably provided by an API provided by the various 'partners'), where it came from, who you are, etc.

If the score is high enough, they get a warrant and _then_ they read / listen to your communication (assuming you're a Yank, otherwise they just request it.) The problem is that one imagines false-positives to be rather abundant -- and the NSA doesn't just 'forget' if your communication turns out to be of no concern. Indeed, you're liable to discover that, although they were wrong, the fact they got a warrant with your name on it / requested it at all will add additional weight to the scores assigned your future communications, leading to additional warrants / requests.

There's no magic genie here that whispers to the NSA, "hey, look at this!" It's still largely guesswork, and those guesses are likely often wrong. But hey, if you want to stay in the "for the greater good / won't happen to me" camp, then enjoy -- but don't be silly enough to think the system has anything resembling accuracy, and that all those it flags deserve the scrutiny.

In 2012, of the 1,789 requests made by the government to monitor electronic communications, one was withdrawn by the government. Of the remaining 1,788 applications which came up before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), not a single one was denied. Yes, all 1,788 applications to monitor electronic communications were approved.